events worthy of notice the journey to Mecca was concluded.
After a short halt at Medina, the caravan set out by one of the three
roads which then led from Medina to Mecca.[4]

The way led through a country whose aspect had every indication of
volcanic agency in the remote ages of the earth's history. Bleak
plains--through whose barren soil outcrops of blackened scoriae, or sharp
edges of black and brittle hornblende, appeared at every turn--were
interspersed with wadies, bounded by ridges of basalt and green-stone,
rising from one hundred to two hundred feet high, and covered with a
scanty vegetation of thorny acacias and clumps of camel-grass. Here and
there a rolling hill was cut by a deep gorge, showing where, after rain,
a mighty torrent must foam its way; and, more rarely still, a stagnant
pool of saltish or brackish water was marked out by a cluster of daum
palms.

On all sides jackals howled dismally during the night; and above,
during the day, an occasional vulture wheeled, fresh from the carcass of
some poor mule dead by the wayside.

Such was the appearance of the land through which the caravan wound its
way, beneath a sky peculiar to Arabia--purple at night, white and
terrible in its heat at noon, yet ever strange, weird and impressive.

But one incident worth recounting occurred on the way. Yusuf, Amzi, and
the boy Dumah had been traveling side by side for some time. The way, at
that particular spot, led over a plain which afforded comparatively easy
traveling, and thus gave a better opportunity for conversation. The talk
had turned upon the Guebre worship, and the priest was amazed at the
knowledge shown by Amzi of a religion so little known in Arabia.

"I can tell you more than that," said Amzi in a low tone. "I can tell
you that you are not only Yusuf the Persian gentleman of leisure, but
Yusuf the Magian priest, accustomed to feed the sacred fire in the
Temple of Jupiter. Is it not so? Did not Yusuf's hand even take the
blood of Imri the infant daughter of Uzza in sacrifice? Can Yusuf the
Persian traveler deny that?"

Yusuf's head sank; his face crimsoned with pain, and the veins swelled
like cords on his brow.

"Alas, Amzi, it is but too true!" he said. "Yet, upon the most sacred
oath that a Persian can swear, I did it thinking that the blessing of
the gods would thus be invoked. The rite is one not unknown among the
Sabaeans of to-day, and common even among the Magians of the past. Amzi,
it wa